Kenner FX-7 & 2-1B Review

 Before I get into the main figures from ESB, I almost forgot to include these 2 droids who do play a part in the movie. Both FX-7 & 2-1B play a role in treating Luke Skywalker's various injuries in the film. FX-7 administers treatment to Luke while he's in the bacta tank while 2-1B observes. 2-1B oversees Luke's bacta tank treatment, tells him to take care before going off in his Snowspeeder and installs his new artificial hand. Now, in my humble opinion these figures aren't remarkable. FX-7 easily can break his arm extensions. 2-1B however has an imagined lower body as his on set model had no legs. But they are on ESB cards.

FX-7 is admittedly a neat looking droid. He's fairly tall, and his head turns. His extended arm can administer treatments to a bacta tank, but the 2000's era Bacta Tank Luke benefits the most from this, so FX-7 isn't really able to interact well with other Kenner figures. However if you watch Kenner commercials from this era you see the people who created them had something called "imagination" as did the kids in those commercials. Put Luke in a clear plastic cup full of water and put FX-7 by it. Problem solved! But he is fragile. His extended arm can fall off but it can easily be replaced. His other arms, well, they are fragile and can easily break. Mine did.

Now onto 2-1B. He is a true 5 POA figure, and comes with a medical staff. It's not an accessory you see him use onscreen, a Kenner first! His lower body was a guess as the on set prop for the droid was only shot from the waist up. Notice you never see what his legs look like? Well Kenner's design team invented his lower body, and they did do a good job. Shows how ingenuity can be used, and applied to make a toy happen. The transparent chest is a cool looking feature and may be a reason kids wanted this toy. Heck, if I saw it I would want it!

Now, these are not essential figures. They look good and all that, but in the era of vehicles and playsets there really wasn't an environment to use them in. Plus do you really need medics? Doc was the only GI Joe figure I passed on, later on it was Lifeline. The more modern releases of these figures I passed on, except for the POTF2 2-1B, as I needed to buy that to get another figure free. Cool to look at yes. Fun to play with, well, 2-1B won't break while FX-7 will. If you're a completist you need them, but if you're building a Kenner collection let these go, unless you find a great deal online or at a convention.